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Although I do feel this is the nature of the beast when working in a true IT position where businesses rely on their systems nearly 100% of the time, there are some smart ways to go about it. I'm not exactly sure what type of environment you're using, but if you use something like VMware's vSphere product, or Microsoft's Hyper-V, both allow for "live migrations". Why not virtualize all of your servers first of all, make a snapshot, perform the maintenance, and live migrate the VMs? You could do it right in the middle of the day and nobody would even know. This kind of setup takes a lot of planning however. I personally wouldn't want any maintenance performed on my servers without manual approval. Unattended maintenance sounds a bit too scary for my likes, and in my experience with even small security updates for both Linux and Windows servers, there's bound to be a point where something would fail and you could potentially get in a lot of legal trouble if you fail to meet you SLA, or cause a loss-of-profit due to downtime with a business.

Microsoft tested Picco in two group of interns and a family. All groups found the device amusing, but also reported that Picco and Picclets were useless for any functional or meaningful communication. Subjects, did, however, feel that the appearance of Picclets made the workplace feel a little more intimate.

“Two studies of the device at work demonstrated how crafting was an expression of intimacy when the device was used to connect the workplace to the home, and a way of demonstrating skill and humor to a broad audience when messages were sent amongst co-workers,” the paper reports. It also says Picco helped to personalise workspaces, but some testers felt left out because they were either lousy artists or couldn't make clever messages. As the paper puts it, “the level of skill needed to produce these messages became a barrier to entry for some co-workers.”

It sounds like you haven't used Windows Server since the NT 4 days. If you want high availability and failover clustering, Microsoft has made leaps and bounds over setting up those kinds of infrastructures. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to configure them either. It's incredibly quick especially considering their improvements of Hyper-V nodes when using proper SANs. The OS is only as secure as you allow your network to be. Microsoft admitted themselves that 95% of security updates were to patch GUI related issues with Windows Server. How did they fix that issue? Simple. By releasing Server Core which has absolutely no GUI. Administrators nowadays use RSAT tools and remote PowerShell to configure their servers, and add new server roles and features. I've been administering Linux web servers for years and I still will continue to use Apache simply because I know it well. But it's obvious to me that the main attractive targets are Linux and Unix servers because they boast security. When in reality, you can search on YouTube for a video right now on how to run a script to root someone's box.

I seem to remember a substantial amount of botnets running on Linux servers that have Apache on them. Also thanks to poor coders with bad PHP, SQL injections are quite common as well. But this article is bound to spark knee-jerk reactions to OSS software fanatics. Just don't forget that tons of people are switching to nginx and lighttpd on a daily basis which also decreases Apache's use as well.

Not sure I understand your statement. What did your security updates actually update? My point was that MS's updates were specifically for GUI related issues. Considering this article is about X11/X.org, it just goes to show you that GUI's of all sorts are ironically the least secure but the one thing that has innovated operating systems over the years.

I find this interesting since most of us gave Microsoft flack for so many years because of their terrible vulnerabilities. Turns out that nearly 90% of all Windows updates are for patching security issues with the UI. That is why Microsoft is convincing admins to use Server 2012 with just Server Core and PowerShell simply because it makes the whole system more secure. Who needs more than a console anyway? If you ask me you can get plenty of work done with vim, lynx, and entertain yourself with 0verkill.;-)

The Gossamer Albatross is a human-powered aircraft built by American aeronautical engineer Dr. Paul B. MacCready's company AeroVironment. On June 12, 1979 it completed a successful crossing of the English Channel to win the second Kremer prize. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross
I'd like to see more of these. This was over 30 years ago. C'mon people.

The UI is just a bit different by default. The program group spacing isn't exactly the same and it just looks a little different. Start8 is practically an exact replica of the Win7 menu. To me, I think the overall design is just a bit better. But ultimately they both get the job done.

Honestly, Windows 8 is pretty snazzy once you put a start menu on there like Start8 or something. I personally don't like the Classic Shell free ones, but for $5 Start8 is pretty awesome. Regardless, I'm certain they will be bringing it back. Having a hybrid environment of both the Start Screen and Desktop mode is actually quite nice. It's like I'm working in desktop mode 9am-5pm and they I open up the Start Screen mode for watching my movies, reading news, social networking, etc. It's not for everybody and has a ways to go, but the concept of a hybrid interface is something I think we'll start seeing more of in the future.

sciencehabit writes "For the first time, synthetic biologists have created a genetic device that mimics one of the widgets on which all of modern electronics is based, the three-terminal transistor. Like standard electronic transistors, the new biological transistor is expected to work in many different biological circuit designs. This should make it easier for scientists to program cells to do everything from monitor pollutants and the progression of disease to turning on the output of medicines and biofuels."

I was in a similar situation a few years ago. After working various IT positions for the past 15 years, it wasn't till about 4 years ago I decided to get involved with web development. I picked up a book from O'Reilly called "Head First in to PHP and MYSQL" which taught me an incredible amount of web fundamentals and seemed to have been geared towards people that already have a background in technology. Without meaning to give them a free plug, I really appreciate the "Head First" series of books that O'Reilly publishes. They are definitely fun and exciting. Not just for PHP and MySQL, but tons of other languages like Python, C#, Java, and more. I thought I was a lost cause when it comes to programming thanks to only having minor experience in HTML and QBASIC hehe. Needless to say, it definitely got me interested in programming again. Worked for me. Might work for you too.